From GE to Graduation

It’s always gratifying to see a student’s progress at the end of their time at Oregon State University. Kurdman Mizory, who began in the INTO Oregon State University General English program with little confidence in her English, just graduated with her Masters degree! We sat down with Kurdman to learn more about her experiences.

“I don’t know if you remember, but [my English] was horrible! I had a hard time communicating with people,” Kurdman told us. “INTO OSU was the first step for me to improve my English. When I came to INTO OSU, they taught me how to improve it.”

Warren, from INTO OSU, was happy to run into her on campus recently; they had a chance to catch up and she even pulled her diploma out of her bag and showed him!

Her M.S. is in Animal Science, the same major as the undergraduate degree that she earned in Iraq. A portion of her degree program revolved around her thesis project: working with turkeys at an OSU poultry farm, testing to see what kinds of diets impact turkeys in different ways. Warren asked for a photo of her on the farm, but she unfortunately only had photos of the turkeys, not of her with the turkeys!

Warren has known Kurdman since she arrived in Corvallis in February of 2011. She found a host family soon after arriving and for the past three years has lived with them. “They were so good to me. They’ve been like my parents. It will be hard to not see them anymore,” she said.

But Kurdman explained she’s still excited to go home: “I feel really good to go back. To my home, to my normal life, to my family, to my friends.”

She has a job lined up teaching animal science at a local university. She’ll also be returning to a home with her eleven siblings!

We are sad to see her go, but hopeful that she’ll return to Iraq for a while, then come back to OSU for her Ph.D., something she hopes to do in the near future.